Match Fishing - My Beginning

As the lock down continues I am doing my best to pass the time and stay sane and safe. I am still working from home, and am really busy at times, so that does help a lot and I'm thankful for this. A few more adjustments to the garden (including a few new plants / shrubs gone in) but that's all done now bar the regular weeding / pruning. Of course I get my regular walk in every day, between 30 minutes and an hour, and keep my eye out for the various birds and butterflies, should be good for that this week. A bit of weight work at home and some cardio stuff, but I can feel the muscles reducing and see the fat increasing on the belly due to additional eating and drinking. Ah well it will be a good incentive to get back to pre lock down when the gym finally opens up again.

Trying to think about what I can write fishing wise that might be of some slight interest to others, or maybe stir some memories for you. This time how did I get into match fishing..

As I mentioned in my last post once I got my 13 feet fiberglass beach caster (lol) and half decent reel I was able to fish the river a bit better. I only had one of those plastic tackle boxes which opened up with a few trays in it, so nothing to sit on, but then we always stood up on the river. But then one day I was given a wicker basket, wow! I could put the plastic box in it and my bait as well as food and drink. The old cow food bag which I used to carry my keepnet and landing net eventually got replaced by a net bag, those small thin jobs that you could get nothing else in bar your nets. It was easier to walk to Jackie Whites now which was really the only place I fished other than the very rare foray to Bitterwell lake. I fished with numerous school friends at the time (secondary school) but eventually ended up mainly fishing with two lads Kevin and Dave. Kevin had the best gear, most of it bearing the name Shakespeare on it, a blue and white rod and a plastic box. He also seemed to do the best when we went fishing which I put down to luck, of course it wasn't. Kev and Dave lived close to each other on the local housing estate that had been built in the early 1970's, so they were able to see each other a fair bit, me being down on the farm we had to cycle to meet up. I spent a lot of my teenager years on their housing estate with them and a lot of other kids I met at school, we went everywhere on our bikes.

One day Kev told me that him and Dave had found out about a junior fishing club and they had been to a meeting and learn't lots, and did I want to go with them next time. Think it was Friday evening the club met, in a Church hall in Whitehall, and the club was called Silver Dace. It was a fair way to cycle there from Willsbridge on my 3 speed bike, and to be honest I would have got lost if my mates had left me behind! Going into the hall it was very intimidating with all these kids who knew each other and were chatting away and half of them looked right bruisers, lol only joking. Luckily two gents who were running it were dead nice and came and spoke to me, they were Mike Bird and Derek Floyd, and these two guys were brilliant for junior anglers. There were other adults at the meeting, some parents (of the juniors) who were anglers (John Hawkins and many of his family), and one I recall was Malcolm Holbrook (RIP) who was there with his son Mark. In the nicest possible way Mark seemed to be the top dog, other kids were around him like bees at a honey pot. Another lad was Clayton Hudson, he was a good mate of Mark too it seemed, Clayton was friendly, easy to talk to and I was glad of his company, he's the same these days, not a bad bone in his body.

Another adult was present and this was Eddy Shortman, he was taking charge of the team to fish the Junior National on the river Trent.in 1985. I was 16, late into match fishing, and if I didn't get picked I would never fish a junior national. A lot of the juniors were younger than 16, so they foolishly thought I would be a good angler, which I wasn't, but it did make it easier to make friends and try to get some information, though most of the words used by the others meant sod all to me, paternoster, hook length, crowquill etc. I had no clue that I was so bad, but fishing a match would soon sort me out.

The very first junior match I fished was on the clubs water, Chequers on the Bristol Avon. I remember the peg I was on, top of the straight just opposite the rock face. The river was flowing right to left and I set up a driftbeater float to fish maggots. I cannot remember much of the match, but I got confused when the river started going left to right but as nobody said anything I carried on. I had half a dozen dace in the keepnet I guess when Derek asked how I was doing. He said look at your net your fish are dying, and the fish were literally in an inch of water in the net. Derek explained there had been a tide and had I not noticed the river drop four feet, ooops. Disaster of a first match, but I think I got given a plastic disgorger as a prize which was better than the old metal thing I had. To be honest the memory is a bit flaky after that match, and I really do not know how but Eddy picked me to fish the National.

On the day of the national I had two rods as I now had a 10 feet ledger rod which came with one screw in quiver tip that was white. I remember sitting on the coach going to my section with nobody saying a word, but not me, I asked the lad next to me if he had fished a national before. Turned out he had, he had only won the national last year, and then I told him my peg number and he was next to me, shit why didn't I keep my mouth shut. By now I had at least got some sensible floats, wagglers, crowquills and stick floats, as well as a small selection of feeders. I set up a waggler (far too much float showing and heavy shot for droppers) and a groundbait feeder. Both rigs were fished direct since I still didn't know why you needed a hooklength.... I was having a poor match, I just was not going to catch those clever roach was I. When I chucked the feeder out I was having problems with the feeder sliding down to the hook, the BB shot wouldn't stay in place (god this was bad) even when I squeezed it hard with pliers, yep I had no paternoster. Somehow I snared a small skimmer, and then a proper bite and proper fish on the end. I'd not felt anything like this fish on a rod before, and my heart was going mad. It took an age to get this fish in close after casting so far out, and I now had 3 or 4 adults watching me. It was a bream, and the adults said 4lb+  as it slid towards my landing net, but withing a couple of feet the hook came out. I felt like crying, that was my team points gone right there. My 350 grammes was atrocious, and Eddy was not best pleased, but a few of the other lads struggled and that was that.

As a junior I fished in the Silver Dace B team in a winterleague match on the Avon at Barton Farm. On the way to the peg the strap on my wicker basket broke at one end, but I could still carry it. I managed to catch a 2 1/2lb bream which was better than halfway in the section. During the match I had a sudden bad stomach and ended up shitting myself, you can't make it up. Walking back was not comfortable at all, and then the strap on the other end of the wicker broke. I was glad one of the other juniors Dad's carried my box for me, and did my best to "cover" my ass lol.

It would have been easy to give up on match fishing, after all I was miles behind, and nothing was going well. But I've always been a stubborn person from a very young age, and would rather struggle and fight to get something sorted than to give up. I carried on with the juniors that season, and Mark and Clayton helped me a lot, I also started buying Angling Times and Anglers Mail and reading all manor of books. Another junior match I recall was a team champs on the Huntspill, I fished a waggler feeding maggots using my new found shotting pattern, 1 no4 1 no6 and 1 no8. I had a 20 hook but this was still tied direct! Anyway I was doing OK it seemed when Andy Britt came along and told me to carry on doing what I was doing. He asked me what strength hook length I was using, and I said "what hook length?". He told me I would be catching twice as much if I used a thinner line. Well that stuck with me and it was an important lesson learned. I ended up 10th on the day in a big match for juniors and won a bait tray with 4 bait boxes in it, I was well chuffed!

The rest of my season for the juniors wasn't anything to write home about, but I was learning fast and as I was working I had been able to buy better gear, carbon rods, a closed face feel, a mitchell match, and of course a Shakespeare box. I was catching a lot more, but not enough to stand out, but things were now beginning to click and the basics were falling into place.

Stay Safe everyone.